All the way from the renaissance and that lasting ripple
And of course the ancients—learning, discerning deceits
Those sinister sorts of questioned character—Marlowean intrigue
The real stories, life and death, history and mine—the eye
I was born scorned and a strong hypothesis, born forsworn
Endowed—a great mind, but then you find slip and transgression
Bedded and barter—food from the larder
Feeding a service disappearing to ferment insurrection
Intelligence, ideologies and a bit of dodgy business along the way
Tested and weighed against the common sort—just read the reports
And later everyone finds your number, making their own inquests
That classic ruination of rumination—we all write alone
Forgetting one’s station, so few placations, and therein the implication
Unsavory company and brawling, stalling... too smart to be exploited
But they let me live to exploit myself—no one is backing down
Vile heretical conceit and a coroner’s report
With a reckoning left to whom may find concern

William S. Tribell is a multimedia artist. Perpetually nominated for fancy poetry awards, he has contributed to journals and magazines around the world. An oversexed ne’er-do-well starving artist type with erratic sleep patterns, a penchant for travel and selfish over-indulgence, Tribell blames most of his character flaws on not receiving enough hugs as a child. He thinks sushi is great, and his favorite color is green. @WSTribellhttps://www.instagram.com/williamtribell/

‘the rain falls
that had not been falling
and it is the same world...’
– George Oppen, Of Being Numerous.

Rain: my 95th favourite type of weather.
Doesn’t take much to remind me, sure it doesn’t,
now that I sing of all that I ever wasn’t
with very little song left in me? However,

before starting work, I walk past the Ilac,
freestanding in certainty, the whir of a street-
sweeper sucking up cigarette butts
down Henry Place, where a dreadlock-

ed junkie, face colour-bled, squats mid-shite
in a shuttered doorway, unmoved by the combined
reek of aerosol spray, weed and fish waft-
ing up from Moore Street on the wind

into morning traffic, where a Deliveroo cyclist
pedals through a red light, and Gardaí shuffle
by on patrol. I clock in, stand my daily post
at the Chapters Bookstore entrance, muffle

back yawns no Americano could quench,
eye each and every face that walks in,
my waterproof Timberlands planted firm.
The automatic doors stay stubbornly open,

a flow of air hissing across parquet tiles
to knock over the yellow ‘Caution Wet FloorTM’
folding sign as rainy footprints pool
their displeasure, like barcodes stamped to clear.

Tannoy blares Vivaldi in the morning and Bach
at noon, the sweet, dread chorus
of St. Matthew Passion a call to prayer for waifs
and strays to amble in, spillvodka in the kid’s

section; it doesn’t drown out the mid-afternoon
swarm of Toyota, Citroen and Skoda chariots
trampling after eternity. In March, Parnell’s crown
is bulldozed, ashtray-destitute, traffic lights

grinning a salutation at me with the green,
and give me the finger with the red.
“You’re only makin’ more work for yourself,”
my assistant manager grunts, shaking his head.

For sure, it’s Dublin’s answer to Times Square (circa ’72),
and twice as much of a shithole; even the iron shriek
of the Broombridge-bound LUAS is bandaged
in frost. But it’s only the rain that falls, adding acidic

wealth to the pavement once the tide ebbs back
to ground-level. I clock out at half six, switch my phone
on, thumb through notifications, go for a gargle
in Fibbers. Later, I’ll carry a shopping bag laden

with empties to the bottle-bank behind Tesco.
I’ll head home to you with the scraps of rain,
when I’m done with their shattering,
bone-weary now, and soaked to the skin.

Daniel Wade is a poet and playwright from Dublin. In January 2017, his play The Collector opened the 20th anniversary season of the New Theatre, Dublin. His spoken word album Embers and Earth, available for download on iTunes and Spotify, launched the previous October at the National Concert Hall. A prolific performer, Daniel has featured in festivals including Electric Picnic, Body and Soul, Culture Night and the West Belfast Festival. Daniel was the Hennessy New Irish Writing winner for April 2015 in The Irish Times, and his poetry has appeared in over two dozen publications since 2012.

Broken pine
Behind the painting
The world we inherit
Married we made it
A lot better
Something together
It was not capable before
Long roads alone
So dangerous if not
Deadly. All demons
Know midnight knows
Curves; slatted twilight
Steering I sat on your lap
Feet feel pedals, as friends—
Motel eyes blinking
Vacancy in here
It sure was, and we filled it up
Our honeymoon
One day
One twilight
Before we drove off
Fender hubs gone
Ditch bait
Liquor run.
Broken neck
Standing pine
That’s funny, you said
Why is it honey
That you,
That we... survived?

Elisabeth Horan is a poet and mom from Vermont. She is a messy minded feminist and ecobitch. She loves animals and nice people. @ehoranpoet